Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

It is widely known that the future of Blu-ray is in 3D and a feasible idea for this was shown by Panasonic at the CEATEC show in Japan although it was pre-production.  However they have now made a bid to be king of this future market with a proposal to the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) regarding a way of producing two way (left and right eye) full High Definition discs.

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Blu-ray has always been fighting against the tide, struggling against high prices, general reluctance to move on from DVDs, and now the “credit crunch” as well.  In fact, many people were beginning to think that the victory against HD-DVD may have been in vain due to the apparent lack of consumers, and that the aim of 5 million units to be sold this year was laughable.  However it would appear that both parties are in the process of being proved wrong with figures released by Sony showing some interesting truths.

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Anybody who is fed up with new formats of media and still has only vinyl switch off your monitor now.  Boosted by their success in the High Definition DVD war with Blu-ray they have decided to expand the Blu franchise with Blu-spec CD.

Details are sketchy regarding the actual advantages due to a poorly translated Japanese press release, but what we do know is that it aims to overthrow the CD.  Unsurprisingly, they are burned using the Blu Laser Diode (hence the Blu) and even more unsurprisingly they will cost around the $20-$35 mark.  Obviously, we don’t know what you are paying for but the general consensus is that it will be significantly better sound quality. 

There’s a strange twist to the Blu-spec CD—find out after the break.

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Well, we all knew Steve Jobs’ view of Blu-ray (remember when he described it as a “bag of hurt?“), but it seems he is not the only one who thinks Blu-ray just may be drawing its last dying breaths.  Robin Harris proclaims “Blu-ray is dead” and makes some points that might just make some folks sit back and say hmmmmmm.

Granted, it took a while for DVD to make it into mainstream when it was first introduced, like 5 or 6 years, or so.  You still had diehards hanging on the their VHS.  Heck, I still also own a VHS player.  It’s practically a relic.  So, you have people arguing, give Blu-Ray a break—it’s only been out a year or so.  Continued after the break.

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Samsung and Netflix have just announced a new partnership that will bring Netflix video streaming to a handful of Blu-ray players.  The models that will be compatible are the BD-P2550 and BD-P2500, both of which are currently available and retail for $399.99. It was also stated that in the future they hope to bring Netflix support to a “range of home entertainment products,“ of course they did not go into any specifics.

The Netflix support for both players will come courtesy of a free update from Samsung. Both the BD-P2550 and BD-P2500 offer similar functionality and specs, however the BD-P2550 will also be able to use Pandora Radio as part of this free update.

Overall, Netflix seems to be making quite a push into your home entertainment center with these recent “Watch Instantly” additions.  In the beginning support was limited to a PC, however we also saw the introduction of the Roku Netflix Player a short time ago, then most recently we saw the LG BD300, which is another Blu-ray player that offers Netflix streaming capabilities.

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Sections: Video, Content, DVD Players/DVRs, HDTV, Video Providers, Web, Online Music/Video

Despite charging a premium for Blu-ray rentals, Netflix is still expecting to see roughly 500,000 subscribers become Blu-ray subscribers.  That means that just a little under 6% of their 8.6 million customers are willing to shell out that extra buck every month.  Or in other words, it means Netflix will receive an addition $500,000 each month, of course some of that is bound to cover the costs of the movies.

Just as a reminder, the Blu-ray surcharge will kick in on November 5, so if you want to avoid that, make sure you turn off Blu-ray access in your account settings.

Read [Reuters]

• Some Columbia Pictures movies return to NXE streams
• Panasonic makes a move for 3D Blu-ray
• Blockbuster to offer streaming set-top box

100 entries.  20 finalists.  3 winners.  1 grand award.  And a confused girl.  You might be having a little chuckle over the confused girl part.  But I really am.

Of the 3,162 exhibitors at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair and all their acres of eye-popping electronics, how does a China Blue High-Definition (CBHD) player win the Grand Award and the Gold Award for Consumer Electronics in a competition as highly touted as the HKEIA Award for Outstanding Innovation and Technology?  Seriously?  The most amazing, can’t live without, new electronic of highest innovation in all the world is a CBHD player?

Half of you reading this are saying, what in the world is a CBHD player?  And I hope the rest of you are shaking your heads with me.

See?  I’m not the only one confused now.

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A lower priced Blu-ray player is coming this November from Sherwood America for under $300.  Expect the usual BD features like 1080p video, upscales DVDs, and supports BD Profile 1.1.  With the holidays coming, expect more news like this.

I have never heard of this particular company, so I did some digging.  Don’t expect any exotic styling here.  Their other devices feature pretty conservative design.  Where can you expect to find this player?  We don’t know yet, but when we do, we’ll let you know.  More after the break.

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Despite the growing popularity of netbooks and ultraportable PCs, at the end of the day we consumers still turn to our old, reliable, and trustworthy desktop PCs for our more sophisticated and power-hungry computing needs.  Knowing this, Acer is not abandoning its desktop PC product line, despite the success of its Acer Aspire One.  To address our power-hungry computer needs, the company is rolling out the new X3200 Phenom-powered desktop PC.  And, what better way to appreciate this machine’s power, but to pair it up with a 24-inch LCD, right?

Plenty more after the break.

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I just received an e-mail from Netflix saying that there will be an increase in the subscription fee for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies.  The increase is a whopping $1.  Assuming they aren’t singling me out, this should effect plenty of Netflix subscribers.

This new fee will start on November 5th, 2008.  If you don’t want to get hit with the fee, you can turn off access to Blu-ray movies by going into your account and changing your settings.  This is far from the end of the world.  It is only a dollar more a month to get higher quality videos from Netflix.  More details as they come.

• Some Columbia Pictures movies return to NXE streams
• Blockbuster to offer streaming set-top box
• Panasonic makes a move for 3D Blu-ray